The Concept of Loneliness - Essay Example

There was a time in my life when I felt so alone and lost that I was grasping for help and taking it anywhere I could get it. I guess it was because the real people in my life seemed so distant, disinterested, and uncaring that I turned to the world of the Internet for friendship and support. It did not matter that these were strangers to whom I was opening up. I felt like these people were my real friends and they would always be there for me no matter what. Just like anybody looking for a friend, I became close to one of these people that I met on the net. Our relationship was such that it was almost like a child-to-mother relationship. One that was filled with trust and what I thought was unconditional support for each other.

This person whom I considered to be my best friend was more than 30 years older than me, hence the parental figure that I was looking for in my life. I turned over my life to that person. Allowing her to mold me into the child that she never had because I felt loved and secure whenever we would talk online. The care packages that she sent my way only helped to foster our relationship and made me more dependent on her than ever. It was almost too late when I realized that the friendship that we had was a one-sided street that ended horribly.

As I mentioned previously, I felt like this person was the parental figure that I so craved to have in my life I did everything that she instructed me to do. Thinking that she had my best welfare at heart. Things went well with our friends for a very long time. I allowed her to mold me and I never questioned her when she felt that I needed disciplining or a good talking to because she felt that I did something wrong. But then the time came when I had an opportunity to do something different with my life. It turned out that this move of independence on my part was not received by her. After berating me and lashing out because of some personal problems that she was having at the time, I came to realize that this was not the life that I envisioned for myself. This was not the perfect friendship that I had perceived. The minute that I began to grow as a person, it was taken against me and used to hurt me emotionally by this person.

In order to give me the chance to grow as a person and discover who I truly was without the support of this friend I decided to end the friendship. It was already ruined the day that I decided to take charge of my life anyway. I never looked back after saying goodbye to her via email. I knew that it was the right decision to make because the friendship was starting to become stifling in the sense that I no longer had the freedom to decide for myself. Instead, I was expected to constantly refer to her wisdom and guidance not as a point of reference for my final decision, but because her wisdom and guidance were the final decision.

 After such a traumatic experience, I told myself that I would never again allow a single person, no matter how close we became as friends, to ever have that kind of control and decision-making power over my life. This is my life and I have to live it. The decisions that other people make for me may or may not be the right decision. So let the wrong decisions be my own. At least I will have learned a valuable lesson from the mistake that I made. Rather than being a success at the advice of other people and me feeling like I am more of an automaton than a human being.

I picked up a number of life lessons along the way to healing from this traumatic experience. For one thing, I came to realize that even if you do not have the support of your family in anything that you do, that does not matter. What really matters is that I believe in myself and in the decision that I am making for myself. After all, I have to suffer the consequences of my actions on my own. If it succeeds, the honor should be mine alone as well.

The internet has a lot of people who are truly friends. However, there are also those who masquerade as friends but really just want to be in a friendship where they can control a person in thoughts, words, and actions. It is easy for people like that to succeed in finding gullible people to control. I was lonely and looking for friendship and care, I fell into the trap but got out before it was too late.